


The Wanderer

by Shinyredfinish



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Injury, Mild Stockholm Syndrome, Not Canon Compliant, Other, Rape/Non-con Elements, Reader has no affiliations to henry/the studio, Tags May Change, Yandere, bendy is an asshole, cursing, explicit descriptions of rape, i didn't much like some chapters, i'll add more tags when it gets to the explicit sexual stuff, if you squint you can see hints of him having been there, ink bendy - Freeform, redemption arcs?? ;), so i'm cutting them out, still deciding if I'll ad henry or not, you're just unlucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:01:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22121503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinyredfinish/pseuds/Shinyredfinish
Summary: Wandering is a terrible sin, and you’ve just wandered into the worst goddamn animation studio in the world.
Relationships: "Bendy" | Ink Bendy/Reader, Bendy (Bendy and the Ink Machine)/Reader
Comments: 5
Kudos: 73





	The Wanderer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back on my bullshit lads. This fic isn't going to be perfectly canon compliant because I'm describing the layout 70% from memory and 30% from lazy googling. Also, I didn't like some of the story so I'm electing to write it in a way that I prefer(that may or may not be worse). Mind the tags.

“Hello?” You call out into the empty studio, letting the heavy door groan shut behind you. There’s a click that sounds suspiciously like the door locking, and you groan when you try the handle to find that it had, in fact, locked behind you.

Just your luck. It was unlocked when you opened the door, and of course it’s the kind of lock that requires a key rather than a simple deadbolt or something that can be unlocked from the inside.

You sigh, but it isn’t a big deal . Worst case scenario, you need to kick the door open or take the door off its hinges to get out (and pay for any damages, assuming this place isn’t as abandoned as it looked from the outside). You’ll worry about it later. Right now, you want to look around and see if there’s anybody here, or at the very least, a warm radiator you can dry your soaked clothes next to.

You figure you’ll be here a while; the rain doesn’t look like it’ll let up anytime soon. Still dumping buckets out there.

Water squelches between your toes as you walk, leaving puddles and muddy footprints in your wake but you don’t take off your boots. The floorboards look old, with splinters and rusty nails sticking up on every other board. Hell, the floor just in front of the entry nearly buckled under your weight when you entered, and you don’t want your foot to be sliced open if the floor decides to give way under you.

You do, however, shuck off your jacket and lay it against a chair near the entryway. It was soaked through anyway, and though you shiver from the cold without it, you needed to let it dry or you’d be colder than you felt now.

Despite its obvious age, the building is in decent enough shape. It’s still standing, at least. It’s not too cold in here, either, instead bordering on it with a chill that’s enough to be annoying but not concerning.

You step out of the entryway, noting immediately that there’s still power here; you see a projector running in the room you first enter, not playing anything, just facing the wall and casting warm light. You can hear music playing nearby.

There’s nobody that you see so far as you walk around, but you figure, surely, someone’s still here. At the very least, someone was here  _ recently _ . Why would there be power otherwise? Nobody would pay electric bills to an abandoned building…

Despite the working power the building is a mess, littered with scraps of paper and furniture messily strewn about. It looks almost like the place was left in a hurry. You walk over to one of the walls to examine a sagging poster similar to the ones decorating the entryway.

“Bendy in: The Dancing Demon” it reads in bold, capital letters. Reaching up, you press your hand against the poster to smooth the peeling paper back against the wall. It crinkles under your touch and you cringe at the amount of dust that smears onto your palm. This has been here a long time…

This place must have been an animation studio, you figure, considering the amount of posters and cutouts of cartoon characters that decorate the place. It reminds you of those old cartoons you’d seen clips of, like Betty Boop and Popeye.

There’s writing on the walls. “Dreams come true,” smeared messily in bold, black letters that glint in the light. You realize that it’s fresh, like someone had just come through here and written it, if the ink still lazily trailing down the wall was any indication.

Dreams come true… It’s an odd message, but it confirms your suspicions that this place isn’t as abandoned as it looked at first glance.

“Hello?” You call out down the hall, “Anybody here? Sorry for trespassing; I came in to get out of the rain and the door locked behind me.”

No answer. Well… Doesn’t sound like there are any objections, then, so you may as well continue to explore the place. It’s not like you can leave, anyway.

With that in mind, you continue walking around, stopping once more at a room that puts you on a small alcove overlooking a much more massive area. There’s a lever next to you, but it’s already pulled down and humming with power. You assume it controls the chains that suspend the  _ massive _ machine in the center of the room.

You don’t know what it does, but the massive thing was strung up in the large, empty room by several chains, tubes and pipes attached to it leading down into the black abyss beneath it.

You continue to stare at it for a few more moments, awestruck. It seems so out of place here. If it’s supposed to be some kind of generator, it’s a bit too big for this small building. Your eyes flit down to try and see anything past the yawning black abyss beneath the machine. How far is that drop?

Turning away from the sight, you leave the room to finish looking around. On your way out, you trip on the pipe running across the floor directly outside the machine’s room.  _ Terrible placement for a pipe… _

You continue until you find a room with a lever and six pedestals in it. Above the lever is a sign that reads “INK MACHINE,” and behind each pedestal is an image of an object. That explains what that massive machine must have been for, but the explanation only brings more questions, and this room looks  _ suspiciously _ like an offering room. Do you need these items to run the machine? What sort of crackshit engineer designed this system?

You step back out of the room, stopping dead in your tracks at the sight that greets you in the room across the hall. It’s in plain sight of the hallway— a body strapped to a propped-up table in the center of the room, its chest and ribs sloppily pried open. There’s a light illuminating the awful sight, like it was something to be displayed. Nagging curiosity has you dragging yourself closer to get a better look. 

You stop in the doorway and you can see thick, black globules of blood still dripping from its marred chest. The heavy, permeating smell of chemicals fills your nose and you feel faint. Whatever this thing is, it doesn’t carry the normal smell of decay that a corpse does. It smells so, so strongly of ink, like pressing a sharpie up to your nose; strong enough to burn with its intensity and you quickly step back into the hallway to get a breath of fresh air. 

You turn to leave and hesitate, glancing back over your shoulder to look into the room. It’s still there. Not a hallucination, not a delusion. You see something glint from between its ribs.

Something… something’s in its chest.

You step into the cramped room, clutching your shirt over your mouth to diffuse the smell, if only a little bit. It helps, and you stop in front of the mangled creature, peering into its chest. It’s a wrench.

This is so fucked up. You don’t know if it was torn open for the wrench, or if whatever sick fuck that did this left it there. Your thoughts flash back to the room with the pedestals, and you look back towards the door. Wasn’t one of those pictures of a wrench…?

You begin to reach for its handle before stopping yourself, the horror and absurdity of the situation hitting you. You were  _ not _ just about to rip the wrench out of this thing’s chest. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Shaking your head, you turn to head back towards the entrance. Something tells you that you shouldn’t stick around, and that something is in the shape of the mangled corpse—of what you assume to be a wolf—strapped to a table. You don’t need any further convincing.

Making your way back to the entry, you try the knob again, hoping it’s unlocked on its own while you were wandering around. No luck. You shift your attention to the boarded up windows. Dim slants of light filter in through the gaps between them, and you give the boards a sharp tug. The wood buckles but doesn’t give, and you try again, pulling until you lose your grip and tumble to the floor. Your back cracks against the rotting floorboards harshly and you feel it beginning to throb. That’s going to leave a bruise.

Squinting up at the windows once more, you get up and give one last tug to each board, giving up as they remain unyielding. Instead, you turn back to the rest of the studio to begin searching for another exit. Surely there must be one… Isn’t it illegal to have just the one exit?

Making your way back through the halls with far more trepidation than before, you try every door you come across. Many of them don’t budge, knobs jiggling when you try them, and in the rooms that you have access there aren’t any convenient, alternative exits..

After scouring every room, you give up and make your way back to the pedestal room, examining the pictures. You know you’ve seen most of the items already, lying around the studio. Maybe this room is the key to you getting out of here? It’s not much to go off, and a flimsy guess at best, but it’s all you have at the moment. Who knows, maybe the ink machine will spit out a key.

You turn and begin to collect the items from around the studio, setting them on their respective pedestals and watching with trepidation each time a plate shudders and sinks under the weight of the object placed. With each item you place on its respective pedestal, a light flickers on and illuminates the pedestal. Soon, you have every item but the wrench.

This was the part you’ve been dreading.

Making your way to the room next to the “offering room”—or whatever the fuck it’s supposed to be— you approach the corpse, using your shirt to once again mask the overwhelming stench of ink. You come to a stop in front of it, your hand already beginning to itch at the prospect of having to touch the ink-coated wrench.

It this even worth it? Absolutely the fuck not.... but it’s all you have to go off right now.

_ Just think about it like Operation-  _ No. No, that’s somehow much worse. You cringe and just squeeze your eyes shut, hoping it’ll lessen the revulsion coiling through you. You reach for the wrench, wrapping your fingers around it when you feel the brush of cold metal and try to ignore how slick and wet it is with ink.  _ This is fine. This is normal. _ You struggle between trying not to think too hard about what you’re doing and trying to not let your hand accidentally brush against its ribs.

With a swift yank, you pull the wrench from the wolf’s chest and bolt out of the room, gasping for air once you’re in the hallway. The building feels colder. You hope it’s just you and not the spirit of the body you probably just desecrated.

You make your way back to the offering room, dropping the wrench unceremoniously on its pedestal, not even looking at it as you do so. You keep your ink-slickened hand slack at your side, not wanting to touch anything else with it. The indicator next to the lever lights up.

“Low Pressure,” it reads. You groan, leaving the room to head back to the one you think you saw a pressure valve in. You make your way back to one of the rooms you’d seen earlier, with a projector like the one at the entrance. As you step into the room the projector kicks on, making you jolt and whip around to stare at the looping animation that plays. That must be Bendy.

Under different circumstances, you’d think his little dance was cute. Now you’re just tired, and everything about this place sets you on edge. You’ve seen enough of that demon’s fucking face to last you a lifetime. You’d rather stand in the freezing rain than stay here another minute, with the cartoon demon’s face plastered all over the walls. 

Stepping past the chairs set up behind the projector, you find the valve and turn it until you hear something moving through the pipes. There’s a series of bangs before you can hear the gentle rush of what you think is water.

The assumption is immediately dashed as one of the pipes in the room you’re in bursts, spilling what looks like ink all over the floor. Cursing under your breath, you kneel down to get a better look at it, and the sharp smell of ink hits you hard.  _ They really had the idea of a machine that  _ just  _ pumps ink and followed through with it, huh? _

You grit your teeth in frustration and splash through the growing spill, knowing that your boots were probably ruined. No amount of washing will get this out.

As you walk back to the offering room, you notice puddles forming on the floor as pipes dribble ink, likely having burst from the strain after years of disuse. Who even needs this much ink? There’s no way someone could feasibly use this amount in their lifetime, even if they drew every single day. Ink dribbles down the walls into the old floorboards and you can hear the pipes throughout the building rumbling as ink is pumped to—you assume—the ink machine.

The indicator next to the lever shines “Ready” up at you with yellowed light once you enter the offering room and you yank the lever down, just wanting to be done with this.

The lights shut off. You freeze. When they don’t immediately come back on, you give a quick glance around the room. It’s the same as before. Must not be enough power for all the lights  _ and _ the stupid machine.

You can’t shake the unease that builds, however, as shadows obscure your view of the hallway and cast obscure and terrifying shapes from the items on the pedestals. The rush of ink through the pipes is louder now, thrumming like a heartbeat. You think you can hear it loudest farther off in the building, probably converging towards the machine. 

As you approach the machine’s room, you notice that the sound is, indeed, getting louder now. You nearly trip over the pipe running over the floorboards (again) as you make your way back.

Through the boarded—wait. This door wasn’t boarded earlier. You hesitate, suddenly not wanting to investigate as trepidation swells in you, but you push your feet forward regardless.

A hand lunges out from the gaps between the boards, reaching for you. You take a half step back on instinct and feel fingertips grazing the tip of your nose before your eyes fully register the dark figure suddenly looming in the boarded up doorway.

_ Hard pass _ . You turn and sprint back the way you came, tripping over the pipe ( _ again _ ) in your haste and tearing open your knee against a nail that’s sticking up in the floorboards. You don’t even stop to register the pain of the fall, scrambling back up in a dead sprint for the exit.

You know it’s locked, but you have nowhere else to go at this point and you don’t have the luxury of time to consider other options, you realize, as you hear quickly approaching footsteps splashing behind you.

Ink is quickly flooding the hallways, covering the floor up to your ankles and rising. You push yourself to run faster before it rises enough to slow you down. You don’t know if that  _ thing _ can tread ink faster than you can, and you’d like to not stick around to find out.

The entrance comes into sight and you skid against the slick floorboards, slamming against the wall of the entryway. You hear the footsteps behind you get louder and sprint for the door, brushing your hand against the knob as you feel the floorboards sag under your weight.

_ Fuck _ .

The wood gives way. You fall.


End file.
